center channel installation

seems like we have not had much stereo related stuff in here lately so I thought I would share a recent stereo purchase and part of the install. I came across a system that is arguably the best sounding system that Alpine ever made designed completely around the sound quality arena for competition systems. Everything in it was designed around getting the best sound quality from copper chassis on all the pieces for maximum noise rejection to the deck having the power sources for the deck/display in an off-board module to isolate the signal from it(beside the remote). The Alpine F1 Status system consists of the DVI-9990 dvd player, a tmi-m990 fold out screen and two PXI-H990 sound processors that will allow me to do all the cross overs and eq'ing digitally through the deck/screen in what is called an active system. The cool part is that it will allow me to individually tune the cross over frequencies, eq and output of each individual speaker. The bad part is it means I will need 12 rca cables between the processors and the amps... But anyway here is the deck/processors

The screen is nothing fancy and in fact the GUI for it all is pretty dated since this was made in 2007. It wasn't designed for maximum video but it does have the option.
For such a nice stereo I decided to make a better mount for it so I knew it would be rock solid. I bent this aluminum into the mount you see now so it hangs from the rail above it in the lowest din mount. If you look closely where the aluminum meets the dash it also rests on a lip on the back of the dash so between the mounting points the front is not moving. I am going to have to cut out the old decks trim ring and flush mount the new one so it will be flush with the dash(Stay tuned for that possibly shortly).

I also made this bracket to go on the back to hold it in place. I need to do some trimming on it so that the harnesses do not get in the way(this is still the old deck I don't want to scratch the copper chassis up).

so the next problem was the occasion I do video in the car I needed a center channel. After a lot of thought of where I could put it I decided to modify the clock pod slightly so it would play up into the windshield. It already holds the display for my escort 9500ci remote radar detector and the only problem with it is that its really small to try and fit a speaker in it. The tape lines are where I cut the back half of the pod after I separated the front/back from each other.

I made two cuts on the back half to remove the top and replace it with grill mesh that he speaker can play through. if you look at the top/bottom on the right you can see where I also added 1/2" piece in order to make it bigger to fit the speaker I hope to squeeze in(3"cdt)

so after all that I was still JUST a hair short of the 3" I was hoping for. I decided to add a design element that matches the gauge pod I made on the a-pillar(can't find a pick right now). Its just two pieces of plexi that are separated by a piece of stainless that I took from an old windshield wiper in case your curious. I inserted that between the front/back half so it stretched it out another 3/8". Because of this stretch I also made it so that it would no longer fit in the recessed area that it was designed too. To fix this I actually raised the front of the pod up a 1/4". To do this I again cut the pod and was starting to wonder if it would go back together. This time I cut the bottom lip off of the front portion of the display.


The nice thing about plastic though is with the right glue/epoxy/filler you can extend/shorten/modify it in a number of ways. After I cut that lower lip off(the thing black strip shown at the bottom of the pic above) I took another piece of plastic that I pilfered from my rangers old dash fit kit. It was nice and flat on top/bottom and was about a 1/4" tall so I simply glued it in place with the CA glue shown above and then ca'd the bottom lip back on and sanded everything down to a rough finish shown below. You can see the filler piece I glued in with the difference in the color of the plastic.

I still need to finish trimming the bottom of the plexi and the strip but the final form can now be seen.

And the good news is that there is JUST enough space for the 3" speaker I was hoping to fit.

So stay tuned for the speakers mounting bracket and for finishing the pod. I am going to be painting it gloss black with the green stripe going over the top.

 

http://cdtdealer.com/accentfills/cf3.php

 

tonight I cut and bent the mounting bracket for the speaker out of aluminum. I cut the top(the purple circle) out of a lid that is just a tad larger then the speaker so I could see it through the mesh to see where it is located.

I also did the final fitting/sanding that was needed prior to moving on to primer. I am really happy with how the plexi/metal strip worked out and I have not even added the leds yet!

 

The speaker should be here any time now and hopefully will fit like I hope. I have kept myself entertained by trying to finish up the deck and screen mounting. Now normally mounting a single din radio in a 94s dash takes all of 2 secs. When I was installing professionally I use to like to shock the customers when they came back to have the factory radio reinstalled by taking the stock radio and the removal keys for the one in the dash out to the car while they were filling out paperwork. If the harnesses were not hacked up you can literally pull the aftermarket radio out, disconnect the harness and antenna and then slap that back into the factory deck and slap it back into the dash. It took less time then it took to type that sentence so I would do my pre-install check list, swap the decks and then do the post install check list in less then 2 mins. It was funny to get back just about the time they were finishing up their end of the paperwork to check off the checklists, write in the sku#'s I needed for the reinstall and then hand them the keys and paperwork back to them as they were asking how long it would take? No really its done... So why is it so much harder with this radio? Well let me put it into perspective for you this way. Remember me saying that this was a system made for the highest sound quality possible and for the competition arena? Well I was not kidding.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Alpine-DVI-...936758?hash=item3d094b5436:g:GhsAAOSw9mFWMMwD


Now that is a bit of a crazy price honestly as I didn't pay that much for the deck/screen/processor but on the other hand this system I heard retailed around the $15k mark when it was all new. So now needless to say it just almost demands that you go the extra mile to make it look as good as it should sound. So what I did was take off the trim rings that normally go around the face of the deck and screen and glued them into the dash and then smoothed them in. Now with the mounting brackets I made I slide them in from the back and they look almost as though it was the alpine upgrade for the mustang.

 

man the best laid out plans can be screwed up by the smallest detail. After spending a couple of weeks looking at different speakers, weighing their #'s(size #1, sensitivity, freq response, off axis response, ect) I finally found a nice 3" speaker I thought would fit perfectly and mix well with the rest of the system. So it was much to my surprise when I got it out of the box and thought that it was a pretty beefy 3". Well I was right it is a REALLY beefy 3", more like a really small 4"...

I had cut/bent a piece of aluminum to mount the speaker to in preparation for the speaker. But it was made for a 3" speaker and...

but it looked like it might fit?(it was a question)...


So after cutting and bending a new bracket it took a lot of cutting/trimming/fitting to slowly get it where I wanted it.

So now the bigger speaker only raises two concerns:
1.) is there enough space between the speaker and the radars display?(space shown above)
2.) how much of the dash will I need to clearance to get the magnet to fit?


I got a new display mounting bezel as I was pretty sure I would need to move it down the last 1/16" I was able to move it down to maximize space. If I needed I could bring it out a little bit to make it fit but it would be nice if there was enough space for it all to fit.

 

yea I have seen the aftermarket version and it would have more room. But I am here already, it will work.

 

I have seen those before and always thought they stuck up too far for me. It would have made things much easier for sure as it super tight for space in there now.... I drilled and tapped the holes to mount everything and I need to get some button head screws for the speaker as the ones I have now are tall enough that they get in the way of the front mounting of the speaker to the pod. But two screws will work for now. Had to do some trimming on the dash but it was minimal and no big deal with the dremel. Before:

After: no big deal

and the rough fit. I need to add some to the side in two areas to match the dash but again no big deal.

 

after the fit last night the only areas that needed work was the edges of the pod where it meets the dash. Since the form grew and is no longer in the recessed area it was originally it had some gaps that were not huge(1/16-1/8")but too big to ignore. I decided to try a new idea I saw on youtube that worked like a charm by using baking soda and CA glue. First I put down a layer of masking take on the dash where the pod would go and then put the pod down in place and traced a line around it with a pen. Then I took some thick CA and put a bead down on the line I traced, and then put the baking soda on top of it. While trying to work quickly but carefully I then put another bead of glue on the edge of the pod and then put the pod in place and worked the baking soda into the gaps. The CA cures after only a few minutes and then I pulled it up and the CA/soda came up with it now hard as a rock. It took a light sanding and some filling here/there and now it has a nice tight fit to the dash like it should.


tonight I will try to add the leds and the stainless strip to the plexi and then I can get the pod into primer. I was just happy to get to that point tonight when it fell into place nice and tight that I realized that this idea would work. Looks like I had a coke party while doing it all but hey that is part of the fun...

 

well I know everyone around here is into crack but wasn't sure about coke.